I'm Your National Anthem
by lovelydays
Summary: This is how you play the game: you giggle and you smile and then you slit their throats. Victor!Glimmer AU with some Glimmer/Cato for good measure.


_she says, "you don't wanna be like me  
don't wanna see all the things i've seen  
i'm dying, i'm dying"_

* * *

She is a victor's child. It's hardly a distinction in District One. Seemingly half the children at the Academy come from winning stock – they all seem to have a parent or a grandparent or an older sibling, even a cousin, who has won. It seems like an inordinate amount for only 74 games and less than half of those wins going to their District, but, well, the winners tend to get around.

Her father won the 51st Games and she was born a few years after that. Her parents never married; her mother wasn't wealthy. Mother was secretive about her occupation and only years later, long after entering the Academy, did Glimmer realize that her mother was a whore.

But still, she is a victor's child. When there is little else to hold onto, she has this.

She was bred to win.

* * *

From day one, everyone tells her that she is beautiful. She naturally believes that this is the best way to be.

"That smile will take you places," they all say, and so she beams at them and wonders what kind of places she'll go.

* * *

She used to be a happy child. She assumes that this is so because that's what her mother tells her, just before she gets on the train. She has few memories of her life before the Academy – she remembers the flowers outside her grandmother's house, and sitting in the grass to tear up clover flowers from the lawn and braid them together to make necklaces. She remembers the nice man at the liquor store who always gave her candy, after which her mother would prompt her to "Smile for the nice man, Glimmer." At school they told her not to take things from strangers but her mother always just told her to smile.

She has other memories of this time, but they are not so happy, and most involve her mother. Her mother is very beautiful, but when Glimmer hugs her, she smells like cigarettes and the amber liquid she drinks from the bottle every night, and she isn't soft to the touch the way her school friend Chiffon's mother is. Glimmer's mother is tense and yells a lot and always has a headache, and most nights she leaves Glimmer with her grandmother and goes out to work. Glimmer wonders why her mother works at night – Chiffon's mother works during the day, making jewelry out of beautiful silver wires and chains and gems. When Glimmer is old enough, her mother begins just leaving her at home alone each night, and when she comes back in the middle of the night, her makeup is smeary and her hair is messy and one time, she came home with a black eye, but when Glimmer asked her what happened, her mother yelled at her and told her to go back to bed.

Sometimes she asks about her father and her mother tells her that he was a very handsome man who won the Hunger Games for District 1 years and years ago. Glimmer asks if they can go to see him the next day, and her mother tells her that isn't a good idea, and when she asks why, Mother explains that victors often have lots and lots of children, and they don't have time to see all of them.

During the Reaping each year, she wanders away, too close to the stage, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man Mother says is her father. He sits with the other mentors up on stage and she wonders what it would be like to volunteer for the District and have everyone look at you and clap and love you. Probably exciting. Nothing exciting ever happens in her life.

* * *

When she is eight years old, she has been written up for fighting in school fourteen times. "Consistently seeks out and instigates trouble," her report cards say. "Shows strong aptitude for problem solving and physical education. Respects authority, but does not extend that respect to her peers. Appraised by District 1 Academy for Service to the Capitol; accepted pending interview."

Her mother blows a smoke ring and tells her that this means she might go to a different kind of school.

"Do I have to do spelling there?" she asks, annoyed.

Mother looks at her funny. "No," she says. "You don't have to do spelling. But you will have to listen to everything your teachers say. Do you understand that?"

"Sure," says Glimmer. "I already do."

"You fight with the other girls. You fight with the boys."

"But that's different. They're mean to me."

"What do you mean, they're mean to you?"

Glimmer bites her lip. She isn't sure that she should tell her mother what her classmates say to her, because she isn't sure what some of the words mean, but the ones she is familiar with are definitely not nice. "Emerald told me that the reason I don't have a father is because you're a… something."

"I'm a what?" Her mother's voice is sharp and Glimmer cringes. "I don't remember the word," she lies deftly, and walks out of the room. She can hear her mother cursing after her.

* * *

The Academy is not a home. It works like this, see: in first grade, the Appraisers start showing up at the public schools. They watch. They make lists of the strongest, the quickest, the most clever students. They choose 200 from the entire District. To be chosen is an honor – a few parents decline to send their children, but most understand that to attend the Academy is to have a chance at bringing the ultimate glory to their District. Almost all go.

Each year, more and more are cut from their ranks. Some drop out willingly. Some have accidents; are injured too badly to continue. It's an occupational hazard. Stray arrows, knives, spears… all that metal flying around, you're bound to get some collateral damage. A few go crazy – it's rare, but not unheard-of. At 15, only ten remain. Five girls; five boys. More leave each year.

And then, finally, there are two.

The Games are good that year. The girl tribute from District 1 is very beautiful and Glimmer watches her like a hawk when the Tribute Parade plays on the TV. Her name is Cashmere and she is seventeen, and she has long flowing golden hair and green eyes (just like mine, Glimmer thinks) and when she's all dressed up in a fluttering green dress, she looks just like the princess from the book they read in school about Cindrelle, the lowly maid who got to go to three parties in the Capitol where she met a handsome boy, the President's son, and they lived happily ever after. Cashmere looks just like that girl, but during her interview she doesn't seem meek or scared like the princess at all. She stands tall and sticks out her chin and tells the audience that she is strong and smart and they should definitely bet on her.

Glimmer sticks out her chin and points her nose up as she watches the Games. Cashmere kills a boy from District 6 and onscreen she looks haughty and beautiful and proud, a streak of blood smeared across her forehead like a trophy, and Glimmer looks at her and wants to be her.

She watches Cashmere go to the Games and win, and during her victory tour, all she can think about is her own. The subsequent year, she watches Gloss go through the same routine – publicity, domination, homecoming, and her yearning to do the same, to win, grows even stronger. She's old enough now to understand the gravity of the situation, of course. If she were in a different district, one where there are no volunteers, her name would be in the lottery twice. But there's no element of chance at play here. Nothing is left up to fate. If she goes to the Games, it will be completely premeditated, of her own doing, and done with the belief that she not only can win, but she will win.

She got her mother's looks. She got her father's lust for blood.

* * *

The Academy is the end of the happy memories. It's a special kind of school, as her mother says, where she gets to sleep and eat all her meals as well as studying, and Glimmer doesn't like the idea of this because she doesn't even like school in the first place. But it isn't like the regular school in town where she had to sit still and read books with hard words and work on her handwriting and spelling. There's almost no books with hard words here and absolutely no spelling whatsoever. She does have to sit very still and stand very still and generally be very still when she isn't moving for a reason, but she makes this into a game with herself, betting that she can be quieter and more still than all the other kids. She seldom loses. The adults don't yell or punish her when she gets into fights with girls who are mean to her, but they always tell her to smile.

She smiles a lot. She is very, very good at smiling. In fact, the two things she is best at are smiling and fighting.

The girls in her level talk about her when they think she can't hear. "What a slut," whispers Satinna, who is short and mean and trips people when they walk by her. "I mean it. You know she got sent here because her mother was unfit to take care of her, right?" The other girls all murmur and Satinna presses on. "I mean it. Her mom's some alcoholic junkie hooker. It's just gross."

Satinna does not make it through the program. Some people will whisper that Glimmer saw her standing too close to the target and threw the spear anyway. Some people will say that she had it coming.

* * *

The teachers haul them out of bed in the middle of the night and make them run sprints, throw knives, shoot bows. "That's life in the program," they yell when anyone cries. "Deal with it."

Glimmer is excellent at not crying. Instead, she smiles. "Wipe that smile off your face, Blondie," they yell, and she obeys.

* * *

The food is great. They get three meals a day and it's always good stuff, even better during years when the winner was from the district. She loves the fresh red tomatoes and crisp sliced cucumbers but most of all she loves sugar cookies. They only have them at dinner once a month, and she stuffs herself with as many as she can, trying to never forget the taste.

Wilderness is her favorite class, because they get to go outside for practical exams. Each year the exams get longer and harder – less food and clothing given to you, more hazards to overcome – but Glimmer likes the challenge, and besides, she never gets to go outside otherwise.

The trainers yell at her for being careless at times ("You have to look at your surroundings; you were almost bitten by snakes twice") but she brushes it off.

It's just that she sometimes gets distracted by the sky and the trees and the cool, fresh air that's so unlike the air in the middle of the district or in the training center.

When she is 15, she is injured during the last week of spring eliminations. A boy throws an axe. She dodges the blade, but the handle hits her squarely in the chest. She can hear the crack of bone as she feels her collarbone break in two.

This should be the end of her time at the Academy. Somehow, miraculously, she makes the cut – a girl in her year makes a silly mistake during a fight, feints left when she should have really trusted her instinct and gone right. She takes a dart to the eye for her trouble.

* * *

The eliminations get harder every year. They fix her up in the medical wing when she makes mistakes. It hurts to breathe but they make her run on the treadmill as soon as she's mobile again.

"Don't stop smiling!" they tell her, and she smiles harder than ever, sparkling, winning. Everything hurts. She wants to go home. She doesn't stop smiling.

* * *

Image class is her other favorite, because it's easy.

They watch videos of old interviews to learn from the pros, and talk about their "angles." The Games are just as much about entertainment as they are about survival, after all, and if she is going to survive in the arena, she will have to be lovely.

This is something she can do. She has the skills, to a degree – she passed her last wilderness exam with flying colors and made high marks on her kill tests as well – but the other girls are not quite her; they don't command the camera with ease and aren't quite so good at making up stories. When Glimmer takes a life, she becomes someone else – sometimes a bashful little girl and sometimes a stone-cold shimmering queen. When the others kill, they just look like themselves. Like scared teenagers. This, the trainers tell them, is what separates trainees from tributes and tributes from victors.

The kill tests are the hardest. They use criminals from the district; if the accused can defeat their teenage executioners in combat, they walk free. It's an enticing offer. After all, they're just kids – no amount of training will make them a match for a grown man.

She's got her target pinned to a wall and he's babbling about his innocence, calling out for his wife. "Keep crying, baby," Glimmer says, and lifts a dagger to his chest with her most winsome smile.

Her hand falters. Just a bit. She sinks the blade into his heart and strokes his jawline with one finger, delicate, almost sweet, as he dies.

* * *

By the time she is 17, Glimmer can throw knives with a 95% rate of accuracy. But she can barely write a simple sentence.

She knows seven ways to kill a fully grown man using only her bare hands. But she can't add or subtract big numbers.

She can hit a moving target with a spear while on the run herself. But she doesn't know her own birthday.

She hasn't seen her mother since she turned 13.

* * *

The girls in her year don't matter anymore, not since she outgrew throwing spears at the Satinnas of the world. She keeps an eye on them, of course, but only for the sake of maintaining her own place atop the hierarchy. They are good at what they do. She is the best.

The boys are the ones who matter. The boys are the ones she must pay attention to, because ultimately, she will have to kill one of them. It comes as a surprise how little this troubles her. In this world, death is simply something to be faced with pragmatism, both causing it and experiencing it. There is no greatness without risk.

The boys are the ones who matter, and for this reason, she watches them like a hawk. Onyx. Marvel. Flash. Frill. Sheen. She can imagine facing off against any of them, snapping their necks while they sleep or driving a hatchet into their backs. She acts friendly around them, as they do her, but inwardly, she asks herself – what's the point? Everyone knows why they're here. It's no use pretending. Any of them could be her opponent. One of them will.

The boys are of no use to her. She watches them.

* * *

Marvel is a jackass. So are the others. The truth is that Glimmer has no interest in District 1 boys. She's going to move to the Capitol after she wins, have an apartment there and throw parties where she can dazzle all the wealthy men who live there.

They're sparring in combat class one disgusting, sticky-hot summer afternoon, only a few months before graduation, and he's got her pinned with her neck between his elbow and the floor. She looks into his eyes and sees nothing. An infinite blankness.

"Try it," she hisses, as he presses down, his wrist biting into her throat and cutting off her air. The trainers pull him off seconds later, one of them yelling something about excessive force, and she stands and shakes it off.

Marvel is never going to the Games. Everyone knows Onyx is their year's volunteer; he's devil-handsome and built like a gladiator and beyond deadly with a machete. Marvel is First Alternate and everyone knows it, and he has never been happy about it.

* * *

The last year is the easiest, oddly enough. She and Onyx and their alternates train in the mornings and eat separately in the evenings. They don't get sugar cookies anymore. Therapists work with them to make them "ready" for the arena, but she's been ready for the arena for years.

This isn't a choice. This is her destiny. Without the Games, what could she do with her life – make clothing or jewelry for a living, or be a whore like her mother? This is her only chance to have something better. To be someone better.

When she's running on treadmills for hours and hours, she lets herself fall away from her surroundings. She thinks about winning the Games. She dreams of her life afterward, of parties and bright-colored expensive bubbly drinks and beautiful clothes that fit her just right. She likes to imagine herself as a mentor, working the rounds at the sponsor parties in couture dresses and making absolutely certain that one of her tributes will go home a winner.

She knows it's not going to be like that. But she prefers her version.

* * *

Onyx dies, two weeks before the Reaping. Stray metal, you know.

Marvel is too eager to step in.

"I'm going to kill you so pretty," he breathes in her ear as he passes her in the locker room.

She laughs over her shoulder and slams her fist into a metal locker door so hard that the noise echoes through the building, over and over and over again until she can't hear it anymore.

* * *

And then, suddenly, it is Reaping Day.

Her hair is in long curls and her dress is jeweled and royal blue. She wears a ring on her middle right finger, a sapphire that hides a trick spike. Beautiful and secretly deadly. How appropriate, she thinks.

The ceremony is a blur. Their escort from the Capitol makes a speech, tells them all how honorable the children of their district are. And then he asks if there are any volunteers.

The crowd parts and there they are, standing arrogant and tall, the pride of their District. As they're marched to the stage, the escort asks their names, and they speak proudly into the microphone. "Glimmer," she says, flashing a smile at the adoring audience and wiggling her fingers in a flirtatious wave. As the crowd applauds, she flips her hair, giggles, and they eat it up.

A thought flits across her mind – what if this is why she's here? Not for her skill in the arena, but for her other attributes, her body, her ability to giggle and flirt and be both innocent and sultry on cue? This isn't who she is. She can do two things: be pretty and girlish, and kill people. Not everyone else at the Academy had both of those skills. There were stronger fighters, born winners in her class, but they had less charisma than a bag of flour.

The thought crosses her mind, and for the first time, she realizes that despite all her gifts, her body and the things she can do with it, she may lose.

* * *

The Capitol agrees with her.

That's about all there is to say.

* * *

"So it is true what they say about District One." The voice comes from behind her and she can feel his eyes all over her before she even turns. Of course. It's Boy Two.

She rolls her eyes and lets another arrow fly into the center of the target. Her aim is perfect. It always is.

"Glimmer," she says, by way of introduction, and it's to his credit that he doesn't give a lecherous little laugh and retort "Damn right you do." (Such responses are more common than one would expect.)

Instead, he extends a hand and says, simply, "Cato."

She doesn't take it. Handshakes are for allies and to be honest, she hasn't really seen him perform yet; he's spent much of the morning training session picking fights with other tributes and showing off for the coaches. She spins back around, loads another arrow, and sinks it into the bullseye again.

Cato, then. Good to know.

* * *

This is what she knows. His name is Cato. He's by far the strongest in the room, moreso than Marvel, who'd look downright diminutive beside him were he not trying so hard to puff himself up and make himself seem larger than life. He is a threat, perhaps the most immediate one in the room (save for the little one with the knives, perhaps), and she knows she should pay attention to his weaknesses. But her arrogance wins out, and she can't help showing off.

When she knows he's watching, she sends a spear straight into the center of a target. Then she flashes a dazzling smile in his direction and heads to the knife throwing station.

She can hear him mutter something else behind her back, but doesn't falter in her stride.

* * *

"They like it when the pretty ones stick together, you know."

Glimmer glances up at where Cato is bearing down on her in the training room, her arms crossed and a conspiratorial look on her face. "Really?" she says nonchalantly. Play it cool. No need to look desperate for an alliance, even with one of the most dangerous people in the room. Make them come to you, Cashmere had said on the train, don't ever ask for anything. "That's interesting."

"Yeah," Cato says simply, and cocks an eyebrow.

* * *

For her interview with Caesar, her prep team confer among themselves before reassembling around her. Her stylist arches a hot-pink eyebrow and looks her up and down. "Well," he says. "We have two choices. We can attempt girlish and innocent – or we can go sexy."

She knows without a moment's hesitation that they'll undoubtedly go sexy.

She isn't an idiot. She knows by now that her allure is her primary weapon in this fight. Be beautiful, be sultry, make the audience fall in love. It's not love, though. It's lust. If she can make the entire nation of Panem want to fuck her, she stands a sliver of a chance. Her mother was a prostitute and now, so is she. There's no difference, is there? Sex appeal will keep her alive.

The dress is utterly transparent under the lights. She hates it, hates the people who propped her up on this stage, completely displayed for Caesar, who keeps staring at her with that damn lecherous grin, and the entire nation to see. It's degrading. Dehumanizing. But she'll play along anyway, smiling brightly with gleaming eyes, because this is part of the game. The other tributes – the girls from Districts 4, 5, and 7; Clove, whom she already regards as someone to be feared and allied with; and the girl from District 12 – the other girls look at her with derision, throwing poisonous glances her way as she walks offstage after the interview. "Slut," someone spits as she walks by. She walks down the hall, head held high, not looking back.

The boys, for their part, can't pull their eyes away. They're only human, after all.

* * *

They take her ring just before she ascends into the arena, and it feels like just another little injustice to add to the mounting pile. The see-through dress. The silly Tribute Parade costumes. Being upstaged by Girl Twelve, damned if she can remember the girl's name. Being stuck with Marvel the whole time.

She sighs as they confiscate the ring (which she was planning on saving for Marvel) and swears up and down that she had no idea of its true nature when she put it on. There's no way they can really punish her. If she doesn't die in the arena – which she won't; that simply isn't a distinct possibility – everyone will love her. They have to.

* * *

They like it when the pretty ones stick together, it's true. As soon as the gong sounds, the bloodbath begins, and amid the fray, Glimmer grabs a bow, one she knows is meant for Twelve Girl. She's in search of the accompanying arrows when she catches sight of the quiver in the hands of a tiny little boy, a frail thing from a faraway district she's forgotten the specific number of. She's about to pounce when a pair of enormous hands grasp the boy's head and shoulders, breaking his neck in one swift movement, letting the arrows clatter out of his hands.

"You're welcome," Cato smirks.

* * *

It seems natural. It's only human nature to hunt together, to join forces. It's her and Marvel, Clove and Cato, the District 4 girl, whose name she learns is Rina, and somewhere along the lines they've picked up Twelve Boy.

She's wiping the blood from her hands onto the grass while the others divide the weapons and supplies. Cato is already tearing into the food, and Clove rolls her eyes. "God, Cato, give it a rest," she says, snatching the dried beef from his hands and shoving it into the inner pocket of her jacket. "We need to make that last as long as possible."

He laughs derisively. "People are gonna be sending us stuff soon enough. Don't worry." He ruffles her hair and Glimmer can see her whole body stiffen in response to the unsolicited touch. Clove bats his hand away and mutters something that only she can hear, smoothing the flyaways that have escaped from her braids back over her scalp.

She hates Cato. She fucking hates him with every cell in her body and yet there they are, in the woods, running with the rest of the pack and she's giggling at everything he says because that is how you play the game: you giggle and you smile and then you slit their throats. Every time she giggles, Clove rolls her eyes, but fuck her too, she's bound to trip and fall on her own knife sooner or later.

She is winsome. She is beautiful (even now, with her hair falling out of its braids and blood smeared across her cheekbone from the fray at the Cornucopia). She is deadly as they come. She is a born winner.

They kill Girl Eight by her campfire that night, Cato with his sword and Clove with her knife and Glimmer sending an arrow into her heart for good measure, and Lover Boy standing back nervously, offering to finish her off once they've moved on. When they brush him off, he runs, and a silver parachute floats down: a gift from District 2.

The bread is still warm and they divide it equally among themselves. Glimmer takes more than her fair share, but Cato doesn't say anything, just gives her that look. The one that says she'll be paying him for these mouthfuls of bread later.

She really fucking hates him.

* * *

At night, they take turns standing guard while the others grab what little sleep they can. When she volunteers to take the midnight shift, she slides into the shadows, one of Clove's throwing knives in hand. She runs the side of the cool metal blade over her hand, fingering the tip with a delicate touch, and weighs her chances. She could easily slit their throats now – silently, one after another, it wouldn't take more than a minute to kill the bunch. But she weighs this course of action against having to square off against the rest of the competition on her own, and shakes her head, breathing deeply and plunging the knife into the cool earth below her. There will be time for that later. After the others are gone.

(Oh, please. As if the rest of them wouldn't think of doing the same to her.)

She's still awake when Cato stirs, shakes himself awake and sits bolt upright.

"No one's here," she whispers, holding the knife up and letting the artificial moonlight reflect off the blade.

He nods and silently extricates himself from the sleeping arrangement, carrying himself surprisingly lightly for someone so muscular. He sits beside her, running a hand up her arm. "You know," he says, "it's a shame that someone's going to have to kill you."

She shrugs. "Not if I kill them first."

He laughs. It's the longest conversation they've had since training. The moonlight glints off his teeth and she reminds herself that it's fake. It's all make-believe in the end, anyway. They're actors, the beautiful and talented people, plucked from obscurity to put on a show. When he kisses her neck and wrenches open the fly on her pants, thrusts his hand inside, she gasps, tips her head back, and finds the camera.

They're still awake when the morning arrives. She picks leaves out of her hair and gathers her weapons as the rest of their pack rouses themselves.

* * *

They've got Girl Twelve treed and settle down for the night. Glimmer volunteers for the first watch because she'll be damned if Catnip Evergreen or whatever the hell her name is shinnies down that tree trunk and heads for the hills while she's still got two of Glimmer's arrows with her. She sits, her back to the tree, her bow in hand as she waits.

Cato wakes up at midnight and shifts, rolling onto one side. She shoots him a look and he beckons her over.

And, well, she's tired. He rubs her back and she breathes in the scent of him, sweat and blood and pine sap from when he failed to scale the tree, and she feels herself drifting off to sleep, his broad hands warm and calloused against her body, her bow still curled in her fingers as she nestles her face on his shoulder.

She still hates him, but she's grown quite accustomed to finding serenity in unsafe places.

* * *

They're jolted awake by a buzzing roar and sudden, sharp pain all over their bodies, and Cato pulls her up as they scream and run. She can hear Girl Four stumble and cry out behind her but they can't turn back, bye, nice knowing you. They run and Glimmer knows she's got the worst of it, her vision is cloudy and she's seeing things that can't be real – her baby sister in front of her, screaming with blood running down her face from where her eyes should be – and yet she keeps running, her hand still crushed in Cato's grip as he half pulls her along.

When they reach the river they throw themselves headlong into the water. Clove is swearing a blue streak (they all are, but she knows the cameras will have to cut away from the younger girl "for reasons of decency") and Glimmer's world is still swimming before her eyes, bubbling in and out as she presses her nails into the skin around the outside of the countless stings until the world goes black.

_Is this how it's going to end?_ she wonders idly as she falls back into the abyss. _What a waste of all that training._

* * *

There's a flicker of sky, of leaves, of trees, and then she can see again, and she's still not entirely sure this is real. When she flexes her legs, her arms, her muscles are weak, but she can move them, and –

She can move them. She is alive.

She gradually pulls herself to a sitting position, looking around at her surroundings. She's by the river. Okay. She's on a rock on the bank. Cato and Clove are nowhere to be found, but Marvel is sitting nearby, poking his spear idly into the stream, cursing under his breath every time, she assumes, he misses one of the fish in the water.

"Marvel." Her mouth feels thick and her voice is barely a croak, but she gets his name out anyway, and his head whips around as he pulls the spear out of the water. "How long was I –"

"Only a few hours," he says as he jumps to a standing position. "Cato and Clove voted to leave you behind. I decided to stick around, see if you came back."

"Thanks," she says. "Do you know where they are?"

"I think they're looking for Twelve," says Marvel uncertainly.

"Boy or girl?"

"Boy. We lost him after the jacker nest hit us, but we know he's not dead."

"Good," she says weakly, and tries to stand. Her muscles are weak and her movement is pained, but she manages. She starts to move toward the water to fix her hair, but Marvel pulls her back.

"I wouldn't look at your reflection right now," he says. "You got hit pretty hard back there." She moves her hands over her face and recoils; the skin there is covered in lumps and blisters. She bites her lip and resists the urge to scream. It's as if her primary weapon has been stolen from her – her looks are, without a doubt, a solid half the reason she's here. Without them, she's at least medium-fucked.

"Shit," she says flatly, and picking up her bow, she starts to walk slowly but certainly into the forest.

"Where are you going?" calls Marvel from behind her. She laughs.

"I've got to take care of Girl Twelve."

* * *

Girl Twelve is passed out not too far from the tree where she hid the night before, and it looks like she's been hit by at least as many jacker stings as Glimmer; she's got boils rising on her arms and her breathing is labored. Glimmer loads her bow and sends an arrow, silently, into her neck, and she's gone before she's even awake, hoisted by her own petard. Glimmer would smirk if it didn't hurt so badly to move her face. Instead, she yanks the arrow out of Twelve's chest and moves on through the forest as the cannon sounds and the hovercraft descends behind her.

So the plan is this. She has ten arrows, less the two she wasted on Twelve in the tree. She has – how many people left to kill? Marvel and Cato and Clove, that's three. Lover Boy, four. Both boy and girl from Eleven, six. Who else?

She thinks hard. Girl Five. Boy Three. Seven. Eight. She counts on her fingers. Is that all? It feels like too few, but she's not sure. Her mind is still hazy, but her aim is true – it had better be, after all those years of being hauled out of bed for middle-of-the-night shooting drills at the Academy.

Only eight left. Ten arrows. She can do this.

* * *

She hides by the lake, covered by the trees as she watches Cato and Clove from a distance, and takes out Girl Five as she scampers across the clearing. A clean shot; arrow to the back and she's sprawled across the ground, easy as that. She's rewarded with a silver parachute containing a little jar of ointment. She spreads it over her welts and breathes a sigh of relief as they practically shrink before her eyes. Her face returns to normal as she massages the medicine into her skin.

At last.

Cato brings Lover Boy back to the encampment by the lake and ties him up to play with him before burying the sword in his stomach. Clove sits back and enjoys the show, cackling gleefully and occasionally urging Cato out of the way so she can flick a knife. Marvel has rejoined them by the time Twelve expires, and from her distance, Glimmer can see the three of them conferring before shaking hands.

Handshakes are for allies. She's no longer in.

That night, Glimmer scales a tree clumsily and stumbles upon Girl Eleven, asleep in the neck of a branch. She's almost angelic, clinging to the tree with her curls springing every which way from her head, and when Glimmer kills her, cutting just the right veins and letting her tumble like a rag doll from the tree, it is almost merciful.

Cato would have done much worse, she thinks, sliding back down from the tree as the cannon sounds. Cato would have played with her for hours, and Clove would have joined in. She was never going to win, but she didn't deserve that.

* * *

She stumbles on Marvel in the woods in the morning, where he's in pursuit of Boy Three, grinning maniacally as he jumps over logs.

Boy Three trips into a hole and twists his ankle, and just as Marvel sinks his spear into the little boy's back, Glimmer shouts his name and loads an arrow.

He barely has time to blink before he falls to the ground, and Glimmer bounds to his side.

"Sorry," she says, no trace of emotion evident in her voice. Can't get sentimental now. You never liked him anyway.

"It's okay," he forces out, his fingers curled around where the arrow enters his body. "I was never going to win."

"Yeah," she says, unsure of what to do now. Should she shoot him again? Hang around for a few minutes so the two of them can reminisce about the good times? (What good times?) "Still. I'm sorry it was me."

"Just kill Cato," he says, his breathing going ragged. "Bastard's had it in for me since we got here."

She laughs at this. "He's had it in for all of us."

"Yeah."

She waits until he's almost gone to retrieve her arrow, and as she pulls it out of his chest, wiping it off on her pant leg, she wants to vomit.

She can't let this happen. She steps on Marvel's head and pushes it to the side, breaking his neck. He's gone in an instant and she slides the arrow back into the quiver and runs.

Two cannons. Only three more now.

* * *

Clove finds her in the woods near the lake.

This isn't entirely true. In the interest of accuracy, the truth is this: Clove ambushes her from behind in the woods near the lake, a knife at the ready. But Glimmer is not a beginner, you see. Glimmer knows twenty ways to break a hold and she's got a good four inches on vicious little Clove, and even now, exhausted and near dehydration, she's a fighter.

She flips and pins Clove with an elbow to her throat, and laughs gleefully as she crushes the smaller girl's windpipe with her forearm, watching the knife in her hand drop to the forest floor. She leaves her lying in a bed of clovers.

(How poetic.)

Her last word is "Cato!"

Little girls and their crushes.

* * *

The mutts have them up atop the Cornucopia, and Cato's got his sword at the ready. He's fast. She's faster. An arrow to the shoulder and his weapon is gone, and he falls to his knees.

As she advances on him, he looks up at her, and for the first time, she sees him look – what is it? Scared?

No. He can't be scared. He is resigned.

"Come here," he whispers, barely audible over the barking and howling of the mutts, and she chokes out a tired laugh.

"Please," she says. "Don't insult me."

He shakes her head. "I can still kill you."

"No," she murmurs. "You can't."

When she lets him fall over the side, she aims an arrow almost immediately.

She always hated him.

At the closing ceremonies, her dress is iridescent, constantly changing colors as she twirls and giggles and flirts.

They're playing the national anthem and Snow is shaking her hand and it's her, it's all hers, the entire nation is hers and she always knew it would happen this way.

They give her a beautiful Capitol apartment, even more beautiful than the one she stayed in before the Games, simply because she asks for it.

Her Victory Tour is uninspiring. She discovers the joys of expensive drinks, first wine and then cocktails that come in as many colors as the gemstones and jewelry her District is famous for. It's the only way to make it through the boring dinners with mayors and meetings with the families of the tributes she killed.

* * *

Seneca Crane is her first client. It only seems fair.

He pours her a drink and then another, and it's not that bad. He's handsome, at least, and she runs her fingers through his hair and whispers, "What do you like, Mr. Crane?"

He mumbles a response and she presses a kiss against his lips. She can play this part, the naughty little girl who needs to be punished. She's been playing it for years.

* * *

It's not as if she didn't know it would come to this. It's an open secret in the Academy, what happens to the best-looking victors. But it's supposed to be an honor, see; another chapter in a life of Service to the Capitol. This is their duty. The runts from the outer districts could never hack it. Better Ones and Twos than Elevens and Twelves. She killed them to protect them. She tells herself this when Little Eleven's face swims before her in her nightmares.

She's drunk all the time. Nobody seems to mind.

* * *

Cashmere strokes her head and holds her hair back when she vomits up everything she's eaten in the past two days. The beautiful people take care of their own.

* * *

The parties never end. The drugs are fantastic. She mixes pills with liquor on occasion, and it's like being back at the Academy, daring Marvel to snap her neck but she knew he would never do it. She has nothing to lose but her penthouse apartment and her jewelry and perfume and the closetful of translucent dresses that make the one she wore for that pre-Games interview look downright modest.

The Lenders sell her as part of a pair more frequently than not. It's usually with Finnick these days, and his eyes are so tired and he looks so old for his twenty-four years.

The men like to hit her, and she steels herself and goes away, back to that place she went when she was on the treadmills, where she's happy and dazzling and men can look at her but not touch.

* * *

The irony hits her late one night, and she laughs hard, so hard, as if someone's told her a joke except no one's around and she's alone in the bathtub, staring at the ceiling with tears of mirth streaming down her face. Her mother was a whore, wasn't she?

It's funny. She can barely remember having a mother in the first place.


End file.
